02/15/2014

Tennis legend Billie Jean King, who was unable to attend the Sochi Opening Ceremonies with the U.S. delegation because of her ailing mother, who died this week at 91, will join Bonnie Blair and Eric Heiden as part of the Closing Ceremonies U.S. delegation, the AP reports:

King called it a “privilege” to attend.

“I will use this trip to honor the memory of my mother and to further my mission of equality,” King said in a statement to The Associated Press. “I am thankful to President Obama for including me and I look forward to supporting the men and women of Team USA in Sochi.”

Says Heigl: "This film is about a young woman's journey to live the life that is right for her and live it proudly. It is a project that I'm so passionate about and grateful to be a part of."

The producers are seeking to raise a total of $150,000 by March 28th to fund music, titles, color and sound, and the campaign's perks include behind-the-scenes footage, signed screenplays, advanced screenings with cast and filmmakers, retweets from Katherine Heigl and the actual wedding dress Heigl wears in the movie.

Through an arrangement with From The Heart Productions, all donations to the campaign are tax-deductible, with a portion of the proceeds going to PFLAG Cleveland (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).

Kenji Yoshino, constitutional law professor at NYU, joined Rachel Maddow last night to discuss the recent series of federal court rulings against gay marriage bans, and litigation in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Utah, Nevada, and Virginia. And why the Virginia ruling has a bit more historical heft.

It's called SightsMap and it uses Google Map's Panaramio platform, Wikipedia and FourSquare to determine what everyone is taking photos of these days.

“The dark areas have few photos, the red areas have more and the yellow areas have a large number of photos geotagged. The hottest places have markers linking photos, streetview, wikipedia, wikivoyage, foursquare and google plus articles about the site. The place names are selected by the wikipedia readership numbers and foursquare checkins. Area populations are based on the geonames database,” according to the makers of SightsMap.

The interactive heatmap, organized by photo concentration, lets you view the maps at various street levels. So you can view the most photographed places in your country or your neighborhood.

So, where are the most photographed places in the world, according to Google?

While an American city (New York) takes the top spot, Europe dominates the world when it comes to being photographable. Eight out of the top 10 cities are located on the continent.

Europe:

When you zoom into Europe, Prague and Madrid make an appearance as desirable destinations for photographers.

North America:

While nowhere near as lit up as Europe, North America has it’s own hot spots. Most of these are on the coasts, with Chicago and Montreal representing more inland. Most of the American locations are also on the top 30 list in the world rankings.

South America:

South America holds its own against the rest of the world. Their top 10 is divided between ancient landmarks and modern metropolises.

Asia:

Asian's most photographed places are clustered around the East Asian cities. While the Middle East makes an appearance, Dubai’s Palm Islands (a pair of man-made islands in the shape of palm trees) isn’t exactly representative of the region. While other countries have some isolated hot spots that get them on the list, Japan is definitely the winner.